Summer in Spain from Diana Le on Vimeo.

The Bigger Picture

When I was a kid, my mom worked the morning shift. Being the misanthropist that she is, babysitters were untrustworthy and out of the question. So, I spent my summers at my dad’s office. I obediently sorted through receipts and alphabetized files until I encircled myself with neat stacks of contentment. Eventually, my parents found other ways for me to spend my summers. I spent one summer at my cousin’s house, watching Jen and Chris taunt the twins. We walked to Del Taco for lunch every day. The next summer, my uncle opened a dojo, and I watched my cousins learn karate. (I was obviously never one for participating.) Soon, my mom switched to an afternoon shift, and by then, I was old enough to be home alone.

I’ve sporadically visited his office since then, but it always seems with a heavy passage of time that I return. His officemate has two more kids than I remember. She’s going through a messy separation. My uncle looks the same, except simultaneously older and younger than I remember: younger because he doesn’t have a mustache anymore, so when he smiles, his whole face brightens up, and older because that bright smile reminds me so much of my grandfather.

Every time I come in, I see the same picture of me, unframed, taped to his wall. I’m nine years old, wearing a pink dress, plumper than the yellow Pikachu I’m holding. Seeing it hits every sentimental bone in my body. Among the post-its of scribbled phone numbers and notes is a picture of me bearing an embarrassing resemblance to a cherub.

In the interim, I’m working at his office while his coworker is on vacation. While cleaning his office, I went to close a cabinet door that was left open and noticed a framed picture of my late stepmother and tucked into the side of the frame is a picture of her and my father. I opened the other cabinet door to find a family portrait of my father, mother, brother and myself. My dad was never one for extreme sentiment, or sentiment at all, so it seemed. It was a nice surprise.

Postcards from Italy

P.S. I'm currently obsessed with this Beach House cover.

New York, I miss you.

But I didn't understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.

--Haruki Murakami

Mission San Juan Capistrano

Jon and I drove down to San Juan Capistrano a few weeks ago when we both had work off. It was a perfect, cloudless day. We didn't have time to visit the train station and surrounding shops. Not gonna lie--the mission is much more aesthetically enjoyable now than it was when I went in elementary school. I didn't realize how close it is. Every drive seems long as a kid, it seems. SJC, we shall meet again.

He suddenly recalled the famous myth from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split them in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.

--Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

All sorts of half-forgotten acquaintances and abandoned friendships reappear in this spreadsheet of potential reasons to feel terrible about yourself. If you’re as petty as I am, you spend a lot of Facebook time gauging your own feelings of inadequacy in direct relation to other people’s success. All these people you couldn’t give a shit about a couple of years ago are now these omnipresent benchmarks and counterpoints to measure against whatever you have or haven’t got going on in your life.

-- "Welcome to the Quarterlife Crisis"

I share my blood with 3% of the population.

The Japanese believe that your blood type is an indicator of your personality,* similar to the belief in the Signs of the Zodiac here in America. According to the superstition, people with type AB blood are cool, controlled, rational, sociable, popular, critical and indecisive.

Source.

My life has culminated to this very moment.

Roger Ebert retweeted me. I'm practically a celebrity now. Soon, I'll be doing hard drugs. I can't wait!

Def Jams

Mos Def - "History" (ft. Talib Kweli) from Downtown Music on Vimeo.

Professor: How many of you are familiar with St. Francis of Assisi?
[A student raises his hand.]
Professor: Ah, finally! A student that studies theology. What can you tell me about him?
Student: He was the naked guy, right?

James F. Masterson in 1993^[17] proposes two categories for pathological narcissism, exhibitionist and closet. Both fail to adequately develop an age- and phase- appropriate self because of defects in the quality of psychological nurturing provided, usually by the mother.

The closet narcissist is more likely to be described as having a deflated, inadequate self perception and greater awareness of emptiness within. ...The closet narcissist seeks constant approval from others and appears similar to the borderline in the need to please others

Source.